PARIS, FRANCE - While the UN's COP28 climate summit marked a pivot moment, when the world pledged to say "goodbye" to fossil fuels, International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol told AFP on Friday, it needs to now urgently boost finance for the energy transition in developing countries. Birol welcomed the landmark...

There have been near-daily cross-border exchanges between Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Hamas ally in Lebanon, and Israel since the Palestinian group's unprecedented October 7 attacks on Israel.

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - Business activity in the eurozone slumped at a faster rate in December, weighed down by a deeper downturn in France, a key survey said on Friday. The HCOB Flash Eurozone purchasing managers' index (PMI) published by S&P Global fell to 47 in December from 47.6 in November. A figure below...

PARIS, FRANCE - The family of Mahsa Amini, the Iranian Kurdish woman who died in custody, have been banned from traveling to France to collect a top rights prize awarded posthumously, their lawyer said on Saturday. Amini died aged 22 on September 16, 2022, while being held by Iran's religious police...

In a note to the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UN Climate Change body, shared with AFP, climate scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and Exeter University said there was very little room for anything but a total phase-out of fossil fuels.

Paris, France - Ukraine's allies have dramatically scaled back their pledges of new aid to the country, which have fallen to their lowest level since the start of the war, the Kiel Institute's Ukraine aid tracker showed Thursday. "The dynamics of support to Ukraine have slowed," the German-based institute said, adding...

Paris, France - Asian countries dominated the top spots in a keenly watched survey of education capabilities published Tuesday, while levels in Europe slipped at a record pace -- and not just because of Covid. However, the report also showed that students in top performing countries were not necessarily happier. The...

Speaking at a press conference on the sidelines of the UN's COP28 climate talks in Dubai, French President Emmanuel Macron said that the "Israeli authorities" will have to define their objective and desired end state more precisely. He warned that its aim of destroying the Palestinian movement could unleash a...

PARIS, FRANCE -  Growing calls for the world to come to grips with the many ways that global warming affects human health have prompted the first day dedicated to the issue at crunch UN climate talks starting next week. Extreme heat, air pollution and the increasing spread of deadly infectious diseases...

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Around 80% of consumers surveyed across 16 countries now view climate change as the world’s No. 1 challenge, a recent research conducted by GSMA Intelligence with support from Huawei, revealed. The countries include Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Pakistan,...

Beijing has this year sought to play a greater role in the Middle East, facilitating a historic rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and sending an envoy to the region to push for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Manama, UAE--The Bahrain Institute of Banking and Finance (BIBF) has partnered with UpGradelle, a leading French-based consultancy firm, to develop capabilities in the field of digital transformation. The agreement was signed during the visit of Eric Giraud-Telme, the Ambassador of France, who serves to strengthen education and training ties between...

Dubai, UAE--Dubai International Chamber has attracted a total of 92 businesses, including 15 multinational companies and 77 SMEs, to the emirate between January and September 2023. The chamber has also supported the successful expansion of 33 Dubai-based companies into global markets, either by increasing their exports or helping them to...

Paris, France - Tax havens are blamed for lower public revenues elsewhere as they lure away multinational firms but a study published on Tuesday showed that tax breaks in high-rate countries are also heavily exploited. Half the profits booked by multinationals benefiting from low tax rates were from countries that have...

PARIS, FRANCE -  Countries' greenhouse gas-cutting pledges put Earth on track for warming far beyond key limits, potentially up to a catastrophic 2.9 degrees Celsius this century, the UN said Monday, warning "we are out of road". The UN Environment Program's annual Emissions Gap report is released just ahead of crucial...

PARIS, FRANCE - Rarely a month goes by without big tech companies getting fined for price fixing, squashing competitors or misusing data, but it can take years before they pay a penny. Ireland's data regulator confirmed to AFP that Meta has not paid any of the US$2.2 billion (2 billion euros)...

Alstom said it aims to cut debt by 2 billion euros by March 2025.

Pleading for an end to Israel's war on the Gaza Strip, thousands of pro-Palestine supporters took to streets in Paris under the rallying cry "Stop the massacre in Gaza." The left-wing organisers called for France to "demand an immediate ceasefire" between Israel and Hamas", as the death toll in Gaza...

Paris, France-- The UAE has made a fervent appeal to members of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to join the country and its group of friends to lead climate efforts on the occasion of the UAE hosting COP28 in Expo City Dubai from 30th November to...

Paris, France - Russia has been spreading "disinformation" about the situation in the Middle East, the president of Microsoft said on Saturday, as tensions soar in the region due to the Israel-Hamas war. Brad Smith, Microsoft vice chair and president, was asked about the role of the US tech giant in...

PARIS, FRANCE -  A high-level Saudi delegation attended the Riyadh Expo 2030 Symposium, on the outskirts here, hosted by the Royal Commission for Riyadh City, responsible for the Kingdom's bid to host the World Expo in 2030. The event took place in Meudon on Monday in the presence of representatives...

The suffering and death in Gaza has prompted growing calls for a halt in five weeks of fighting in order to protect civilian lives in the densely populated territory. French President Emmanuel Macron called on Israel to stop bombing civilians in Gaza, saying there was "no justification" and the deaths...

Emmanuel Macron, speaking to the BBC, cited examples of "these babies, these ladies, these old people" in urging Israel to stop bombing and killing people in Gaza, adding "there is no reason for that and no legitimacy." He said the continuous assault and the deaths in the Gaza Strip were...

sraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said there will be no fuel delivered to Gaza and no ceasefire with Hamas unless the hostages are freed. Macron spoke to Netanyahu on Tuesday and the pair will talk again once Thursday's aid conference is over, the Elysee Palace said.

Macron had spoken on Tuesday to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the pair will talk again once the aid conference is over, the Elysee Palace added.

Dubai, UAE-- The UAE is a key market for French businesses due to its strategic location as a hub and gateway to the entire region, said Axel Baroux, the French Trade Invest Commissioner to the UAE and the Regional Director of Business France in the Middle East. Speaking to the...

Paris, France - The food and agriculture system adds at least $10 trillion in "hidden costs" to the global economy every year due to unhealthy diets, emissions and undernourishment, a UN agency said on Monday. The Food and Agriculture Organization said it conducted an analysis in 154 countries to determine the...

Gaza health ministry says 9,227 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, have been killed in relentless Israeli bombardment and ground assaults. On Friday, Hamas said an Israeli strike hit a convoy of ambulances transporting the wounded from Gaza city towards Rafah in the south.

Baghdad, Iraq - An international summit in Baghdad on "regional stability" planned for late November has been postponed due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, an Iraqi official told AFP on Thursday. The third edition of the Baghdad conference "for economic integration and regional stability", co-organised by France, "is postponed until further...

During parliamentary hearings, State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said the move to revoke the treaty was a response to the United States' "cynicism" and "boorish attitudes" on nuclear weapons.

The MSF pleaded that the people who plan to leave Gaza must be allowed "without further delay" and should also have the right to return. It called for a ceasefire and greater number of people to be evacuated. Its Gaza staff were still offering care in spite of the Israeli...

Qatar's top diplomat Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said the two governments -- both Western allies -- "reaffirm our complete rejection of responding to the crisis with double standards when it comes to human life". "It is not permissible to condemn the killing of civilians in one context and justify it...

The French head of state was also due to meet Israeli President Isaac Herzog, as well as opposition leaders Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid in Jerusalem. And in Tel Aviv, he was due to meet the families of French and French-Israeli nationals killed in the Hamas attack or being held...

Paris, France - Stock markets slid on Monday, extending last week's sell-off n fears of a regional conflict in the Middle East and worries that US interest rates will remain elevated for longer than initially thought. The concerns about US interest rates have also been affecting bond markets, with the yield...

The company's strategy is to sell fewer cars but at higher prices.

The Socialist Party (PS) -- a heavyweight party of government just a few years ago but now a rump of its former self -- voted overnight to "suspend" participation in the NUPES alliance with hard-left France Unbowed (LFI), Greens and Communists.

As Israel prepares for a ground offensive into the Gaza Strip, the international community has mobilized to try to protect civilians and prevent the conflict spreading across the region. But Tel Aviv's avowed determination to crush Hamas, the group behind the October 7 attack on Israel, are hampering mediation efforts.

Hezbollah and other Palestinian factions in Lebanon have exchanged cross-border fire with Israel since Hamas's surprise October 7 attack on Israel ignited a war that has killed more than 1,300 people in Israel. Palestinian gunmen also seized an estimated 150 hostages while Israel's retaliatory air and artillery bombardment has killed...

PARIS, FRANCE - Natural and man-made disasters have caused $3.8 trillion in crop and livestock loses over 30 years, the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) said on Friday. Floods, droughts, insect infestations, storms, disease and war have caused about $123 billion per year in lost food production between 1991 and...

Thousands of foreigners are stuck in Israel and across the Palestinian territories, where a full-blown war has erupted since Hamas launched their attack. With the violence having already claimed thousands of lives on both sides, several countries have launched operations to repatriate their citizens, while others plan to do so...

Thierry Breton, EU commissioner and self-styled "digital enforcer", raised the alarm in letters sent to Elon Musk, owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, and Mark Zuckerberg, whose Meta group includes Facebook and Instagram.

Israel imposed a total siege on the Gaza Strip and cut off the water supply as it kept bombing targets in the Palestinian enclave in response to the Hamas surprise assault it has likened to the 9/11 attacks. Israel has counted over 700 dead and launched strikes on Gaza that...

PARIS, FRANCE - The Gaza Strip is an impoverished Palestinian enclave that has been under Israeli blockade since 2007. It is ruled by Hamas (the Arabic acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement), now at war with Israel for the fifth time in 15 years. Here is what you need to know about Gaza:...

Rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi "celebrated" her Nobel Peace Prize with fellow detainees in their Tehran prison cell, her family said. "Narges learned that she had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday afternoon from messages sent from the men's unit, where they have easier access to telephones on Fridays,"...

Human rights office spokeswoman Elizabeth Throssell said at a press briefing that the Nobel award for Mohammadi "highlights the courage and determination of the women of Iran". Mohammadi's husband, Taghi Rahmani, said the prize was "an award for all the men and the women who fight for Woman, Life, Freedom"

Paris, France - Global sugar prices soared to their highest level in almost 13 years in September as the El Nino weather phenomenon hit production in India and Thailand, the Food and Agriculture Organization said Friday. While world food prices steadied as a whole last month, the FAO's Sugar Price Index...

Mohammadi's award comes after a wave of protests that swept Iran after the death in custody a year ago of a young Iranian Kurd, Mahsa Amini, arrested for violating Iran's strict dress rules for women. Mohammadi, a 51-year-old journalist and activist, has spent much of the past two decades in...

France's Pierre Agostini, Hungarian-Austrian Ferenc Krausz and Franco-Swede Anne L'Huillier won the Nobel prize in physics for research using ultra quick light flashes that enable the study of electrons inside atoms and molecules. The laureates' research has made it possible to examine moves or changes so rapid that they were...

PARIS, FRANCE - A new roadmap to reduce the environmental risks from chemicals and waste was adopted at a United Nations conference on Saturday as part of a drive to manage damaging chemical exposure. The Global Framework on Chemicals was adopted by governments, companies, and NGOs at the fifth International Conference...

Paris, France - Campaign groups on Saturday demanded the perpetrators of the killing of dozens of protesters in southeast Iran one year ago be brought to justice, accusing authorities of using force to quell the latest demonstration in the region. According to activists, Iranian security forces used live fire to suppress...